Outlook/IMAP problems

[frau kaleun]

Okay, I've had the same IMAP email accounts from the same ISP mail server(s) set up in Outlook 2010 for years with no problems.

Now all of a sudden every time I open the Inbox of my main default account, I get the following error:

Your server reported a UID that does not comply with the IMAP standard. This typically indicates a server bug. Your program may not function properly after this.

Account: <myemail>@<mymailserver>.com

MsgSeqNum 88, New UID 4477. Prev UID: 4477, Next UID: 0.
Protocol: IMAP
Server: imap.fuse.net
Port: 143
Error Code: 0x800CCCDC

I googled the error code and found a lot of stuff about it, people reporting problems with various different IMAP servers. Plus a few common "fixes" for it, none of which are working for me. Also references to possibly corrupted .pst files but no real direction on how to address that problem, aside from a few dodgy looking websites advising me to Download And Run Their Free PST File Cleaner Now!!!! which... um, no thanks. Some places online are saying it's a problem with one's particular IMAP server, rather than Outlook, but knowing that doesn't help much. Anybody have any info or experience with this, or any suggestions on what to try next?

It's not like I can't send or receive mail, but I can't access my Inbox in Outlook without having to clear a bunch of popup error warnings every single time I click on it. It's very annoying.

[Onkel Neal]

Outcome? Did moving to new place fix it?

[longam]

Do you also use web mail to access this email account? There seems to be an issue with that and IMAP.

http://windowsitpro.com/outlook/q-i-...r-message-uid-

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by longam

Do you also use web mail to access this email account? There seems to be an issue with that and IMAP.

http://windowsitpro.com/outlook/q-i-...r-message-uid-

See above, lol. But it's odd, because the info at that link seems to say the problem comes from accessing webmail in a browser while Outlook is also running and connected to the IMAP server.

However I only access my personal email accounts with webmail when I'm NOT at home, i.e. when I'm at work or somewhere else away from my own computer. At those times, my home computer is almost always turned off and even in the unlikely event that it's on, Outlook is not running and not connected to the IMAP server.

I wouldn't use webmail from my home computer because there's no need - I just open Outlook. The only time I've had the webmail up in the browser with Outlook also running was after this problem started and I was trying to figure out what was going on.

[longam]

They do have an A record in the DNS settings, maybe use POP3 instead of IMAP in outlook.

incoming server - pop.fuse.net

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by longam

They do have an A record in the DNS settings, maybe use POP3 instead of IMAP in outlook.

incoming server - pop.fuse.net

I almost would prefer to stay with POP3 accounts, but it seemed like I tried to do that when I set up that computer and installed Outlook 2010 and that was even more problematic. IIRC it would keep asking me for the password for every single account every time it did an auto send/receive, because the order in which it was doing that resulted in the mail server not getting either the incoming or outgoing password (can't remember which) transmitted properly with the first part of the process so I kept having to enter it manually over and over again.

The fact that it was the same password for both outgoing and incoming, and I'd told Outlook to remember it, didn't make any difference. That was even more annoying than what I have now, and at the time I could only find references to the problem but no fix for it other than switching to IMAP, which is what my ISP recommends we use.

[frau kaleun]

Lol, haven't moved yet - probably wouldn't fix the problem as it seems to be a conflict between the IMAP server and Outlook, neither of which would change with the move.

I did try completely deleting the account from Outlook, moving the .pst file to my desktop so Outlook wouldn't use it, and then creating the account again and letting it create a new .pst file after it synced up with the IMAP server. That didn't work.

Further searches turned up references to the problem being caused when someone frequently uses both a local email client like Outlook and webmail to access and manage their email - which I was doing a LOT last month, since 99% of communication between myself, the bank, and my agent was done via email. Since I was on my work PC when most of it was happening, I was reading/sending everything from webmail during business hours. Then I'd go home and use Outlook from my home PC as usual.

Something about jumping back and forth between both seems to foul up things between the IMAP server and the local email client, especially if you are deleting and moving messages and/or folders in both applications which I was doing. Some reports I found indicated that it could come down to a problem with one single email or mail folder - sent items seemed to be a common culprit, sometimes just because the local client saves them to a folder with a different name than the one used by the webmail app and then you end up with two folders for sent mail when the IMAP syncs up. I had that issue and thought nothing of it, but I did manually move items from one of the two folders to the other to keep everything together in Outlook and at some point after I did that I started getting the UID error.

The only thing reported as a fix for that is to start deleting email until the offending items are gone, or to copy all items to a separate location and then put them back one by one until the problem recurs so you can see which item is causing it. Currently I have a lot of mail related to the condo that can just be deleted so I guess I'll start there. If that doesn't resolve anything, I guess I'll uninstall Outlook and try reinstalling it for a fresh start.